In a world that is now starting to take note of energy wastage, greenhouse gas emissions and the price of gasoline, there are big plans to radically change how we get our electricity from the national electric grid. The SmartGrid (also known as Smart Power Grid, Smart Electric Grid, Intelligrid, and FutureGrid) concept is a proposal to add computer controllers to most of the major household electrical appliances, such as the electric clothes-dryer, washing machine, air conditioning system, heating system and your future electric car charging circuit. One proposal is that all these items will be connected wirelessly to a central computer at the electric utility office.
The utility company will monitor the power usage in your home and, based on home owner preferences, the utility company will be allowed to control the temperature set points for the wireless enabled energy guzzlers in your home, such as the AC and heating system, in order to reduce the electrical load on the grid. The intention is to avoid having short duration peak loads in the grid that requires the utility to ramp-up a gas-fired power station. These peak loads occur when people first wake-up in the morning or come home from work at night and start utilizing electric gadgets (plasma screen TVs, computers, washer-dryer, AC and heating, cook), or take hot baths and showers.
Smart energy systems are a $40 billion dollar industry.
If the utility companies can reduce peak loads, and push demand for electricity into off-peak times of the day, such as through the night, then they can possibly eliminate one or two gas-fired power stations. Gas-fired power stations are kept on standby for peak times that may only occur during the summer months due to AC demand or the winter due to heating requirements. This is the basic premise of the SmartGrid.
Global Smart Energy reports that smart energy systems are a $40 billion dollar industry. Google, General Electric, Austin Energy, N.C State University, The University of British Columbia and Duke Energy Indiana, are all working on SmartGrid technology. SmartGrid technology is already being used by Enel S.p.A. in Italy.
The SmartGrid concept is now expanding to include plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
The SmartGrid concept is now expanding to include plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. These vehicles are plugged into the mains’ electric in your garage and recharge a large battery that is then used to power the electric motor in the vehicle for the first 10, 20 or more miles. The next generation Prius is going to be a plug-in, as is the Chevrolet Volt which will be available in 2010. The premise is that it is less polluting to power your vehicle by electricity from the grid than from burning gasoline in the engine. The vehicle might still have an engine for travelling further than the electric range or to also recharge the battery directly.
Hundreds of thousands of plug-in vehicles with large batteries represents a number of things to the electric utility companies. Firstly, they will need to supply more electricity, and they don’t want people to plug-in during the peak load demands as they will need even more power stations. Secondly, they may want to use the batteries in the vehicles to store electricity that they can then take back out when there is demand on the grid. This will result in less gas-fired power station usage. Basically, all these batteries in people’s vehicles can help smooth out demand in the grid network. The utility might even pay individuals for allowing them to take the electricity charge back out when they need it – which is a great idea, provided there is enough charge left in the car for going to work in the morning.
The plug-in vehicle battery to electric grid technology is called V2G (vehicle-to-grid) and will require the vehicle to be wirelessly linked to the home’s wireless network.
This plug-in vehicle battery to electric grid technology is called V2G (vehicle-to-grid) and will require the vehicle to be wirelessly linked to the home’s wireless network. The process to control this is not entirely defined yet, but the vehicle owner will decide when they want to drive their vehicle and the utility company will make sure it is charged when necessary. Again, the utility company may want the owners to charge their vehicle overnight, outside peak demand.
Potentially this could work out well for everyone, and especially for renewable energy collection such as wind power generation and help mitigate one of the drawbacks of wind power generation, namely the time during the day when it is generated. A problem with wind power is most of the energy is generated approximately between 9pm-2am and 5am-8am, which is just outside the time when the utility companies most need to access it. The plug-in hybrid vehicle battery, and all future electric vehicles, will allow the energy to be stored until needed.
There are many important points for the homeowner to consider. Will you be happy with a wireless network in your home and car, letting the grid utility have some say in how you use your appliances? For those in favour, the future looks bright for lowering your home electricity power usage, powering your vehicle with clean renewable wind energy, lowering greenhouse gas emissions and saving money. For everyone else, it may be time to consider going off-grid.
Resources
SmartGrid News: http://www.smartgridnews.com
V2Green: http://v2green.com/
Global Smart Energy: http://www.globalsmartenergy.com/
Trevor Williams is a University of Victoria Mechanical Engineering PhD candidate specialising in renewable energy, power grid modelling and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. He has a Bachelors in Aeronautical Engineering, a Masters in Management Science and over 23 years international experience in the space industry, having worked on Earth observation and telecommunications satellites.
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